Indieventure

Happy New Year, Indieventurers! It's 2025 and there are so many flavours of existential dread tied up in that particular statement that we have no choice but to distract ourselves for at least a couple of hours a day with lovely video games – or (we hope you make this choice, at least) with podcasts about video games! While there's a lot of uncertainty ahead, one thing we can be reasonably sure of...

This episode of Indieventure Extra is a long-awaited reunion between Liam and Ed Thorn, reviews editor at PC-focused website Rock Paper Shotgun (we've never heard of it). Ed discusses his history with games, how he became a games journalist and the challenges of balancing indie game coverage alongside more financially stable AAA content. The pair also chat about what makes a good video game review...

As 2024 draws to an end, the Indieventure trio return to discuss their favourite indie games of the last 12 months. That's right, folks, it's time for our annual Game Of The Year episode! We won't spoil which games we chat about here in the description (you can find that over on our website if you're the type of person who hunts around the house looking for their Christmas presents in mid-November...

Christmas is almost upon us, and before we ring in the New Year with our GOTY picks, it's time for us here at the Indieventure podcast to pour ourselves a generous glug of mulled wine and reflect on the year as a whole as it pertains to indie games. Has it been a good year for indies? How did it stack up against previous years – especially the wall-to-wall hit machine that was 2023? And, putting p...

It’s time for another Indieventure EXTRA, our bonus series where we interview key members of the games industry. We’re pretty PC-focused on Indieventure so in this episode, Rachel has a chat with Oscar Taylor-Kent about PlayStation indies. Oscar is the Games Editor at GamesRadar+ and previous editor of PLAY Magazine and Official PlayStation Magazine so he’s the perfect person to discuss this topic...

Like it or not, 2024 is almost over, and Indieventure is closing out the year with a trilogy of episodes looking back on our recent experiences of the games industry. We're saving the more targeted analysis of the year in games and of course our big GOTY reveal for the two episodes due out in December, but today we're starting out with a more general question: how has working in games media impact...

Time for one more bit of silly fun before we settle down to the serious business of 2024 GOTY picks? We certainly think so, as in this week's Indieventure episode, we're doing an indie game draft! That's right, three people who clearly know nothing about sports have nevertheless kitbashed the idea of fantasy football together with something we're actually interested in, and have designed our dream...

Happy Halloween Indieventure listeners! With the serendipitous launch of this episode on the spookiest day of the year, we couldn't resist the opportunity to peer into a parallel universe and imagine what life would be like if we became the thing we fear the most: yet another podcast dedicated to the biggest games everyone's already talking about. That's right: it's time for AAAventure (pronounced...

Believe it or not it's been one whole trip around the sun since we released the first ever episode of Indieventure! And to celebrate, we've opened up the mailbag once again to answer your listener questions. Ever wondered how we find out about exciting upcoming indies to talk about on the podcast, or which indie video game we'd most like to see get the tabletop treatment? Maybe you're curious as t...

The last quarter of 2024 is somehow already upon us, and while it's definitely too early to be putting up the Christmas decorations (bombastically side-eyeing my local pub there), it is the time of year when many of us stop buying so much stuff for ourselves so we can write wish lists, and/or start saving up our hobby money to spend on the people we love instead. Which makes this a totally seasona...

Welcome back to Indieventure EXTRA, our bonus series where we interview key members of the games industry. In this episode, Liam was joined by Xalavier Nelson Jr., the creative director at Strange Scaffold, an indie studio responsible for hits like El Paso, Elsewhere, Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator and An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs. Joining the industry as a journalist at age...

Music is undeniably a huge part of what makes video games special, both individually and on an industry-wide level. Not only is no gaming award show complete without a gong for the year's best soundtrack, but even the Proms have started acknowledging that video game scores have come a long way since the 8-bit days (without throwing any shade on chiptune, a legitimate genre in and of itself with so...

This summer, the good folks over at Indie Cup once again asked three podcasters known for opining at length on the subject of indie games to be jurors at their festival, and once again Liam, Rachel, and Rebecca were all too happy to take part. This time was a little different, however, as instead of the UK having a branch of the festival all to itself like last year, for 2024 Indie Cup held one bi...

This week sees all three of us being extra excitable since — for the first time ever — we got to record an episode in-person! The lack of Discord delays and occasional internet outages really takes the energy up a notch, you'll no doubt be pleased to know. Since it's been the best part of a year since we were last able to get together in person, naturally the first thing we did when we were in the...

This week, we’re trying something different on Indieventure: an interview!  We’ve wanted to interview developers on the podcast for a while now, especially those responsible for games that mean a lot to us. We’ve been talking about how we might do this since the days of [REDACTED PODCAST], but have always struggled to find a way that feels right. You see, the thing we love the most about Indievent...

Wow, how are we halfway through 2024 already?! No need to point out that we're actually closer to 60% of the way through the year by the time this episode is released; better late than never! Yep, it's time for our GOTFHOTY nominations, also known as Games Of The First Half Of The Year, but Rebecca is very proud of having potentially originated an acronym that could totally enter common parlance i...

Unbelievably, it's been almost exactly five months since the Indieventure trio last checked in and just chatted about what we've been playing recently — and with June being a touch busy, what with it being Pride Month and our need to arrange travel plans both real and fictional, we totally missed a Steam Next Fest in there too. Time to fix both of those oversights with a laid-back episode which, I...

The UK is enjoying its annual two weeks of good weather and so the Indieventure crew have decided to get together and plan an indie game (well, indie-led) summer holiday! That's right, it's another list episode, featuring a whistlestop tour of some of the greatest vacation destinations in video games according to, as it turns out, three potentially nightmarish travel companions. Our dream trip tur...

Happy Pride Month, Indieventurers! Regular listeners to this 100% LGBTQIA+-fronted podcast will know that we're not exactly quietly closeted for the other 11 months of the year, but this June we've elected to challenge ourselves to make an episode that is our gayest yet. This takes the format of an open-ended chat where we discuss everything from our favourite queer characters and stories in indie...

TOO MANY GREAT GAMES RELEASED IN MAY. Don’t get us wrong, we love being bombarded with cool indies but, MY GOD, May has been wild. In this episode, the Indieventure gang sit down to chat about this phenomenon and get into which games they played out of the torrent of releases. Liam’s been exploring a creepy abandoned theme park filled with monstrous weirdos in the survival horror game Crow Country...

There are two groups of people who agree that the year really ends in April: finance nerds, and gaming award show nerds. No points for guessing which the Indieventure crew belong to as we deep dive into our impressions on awards season now that 2023 is officially done and dusted with the conclusion of the BAFTA Game Awards! Expect some spirited discussions of the indie greats of last year includin...

It's been a while since the Indieventure crew did a group review, but here we are at last once again, this time having a proper gander at newly-released (by the time you hear this, anyway) stop-motion narrative adventure game Harold Halibut. Drawing its inspiration from mid-20th century TV — namely an unusual blend of hard sci-fi and gentle animated comedy shows — Harold Halibut proved somewhat di...

Little known fact about the Indieventure crew: we're all pretty tiny. Like, 5'9" at the outside, the types who really need a tall friend to accompany us to the supermarket so we can reach the interesting condiment jars that always seem to be hanging out on the top shelf. So, short queens/king that we are, of course we stan a short indie game. How could we not? Just like us, they're perfect the way...

Let's be honest with you, dear listeners: the Indieventure trio are making this podcast in our spare time around our full-time day jobs and, sometimes, we simply can't find the time or just don't feel like writing a detailed script. Which is why, on this occasion (and at random intervals going forward) we've crowd-sourced our theme for this episode! We asked and you lovely people answered, throwin...

It's a Leap Year, and the strange minds at Indieventure have taken this as a sign that we need to do a thematically appropriate episode about a gaming trope all three of us happen to love! Yes, since 2024 has an extra day, we decided to dedicate that sliver of bonus time to talk all about time loops. Trust us, it makes sense. Because of the fluid nature of this discussion we don't limit ourselves...